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Some groups wary of Fed-based Common Core curriculum

Sentinel & Enterprise

Updated:
01/20/2014 02:16:49 PM EST

Longsjo Middle School seventh grader Megan Duong listens to her social studies teacher Matt Lamey as he instructs his students in class on Friday morning just before they headed down to the library to use the computers. SENTINEL & ENTERPRISE/JOHN LOVE

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By Lisa Hagen

Boston University Statehouse Program

BOSTON -- Old controversies about who should set education standards are flaring up again as Massachusetts moves toward new federal-based curriculum and standardized testing designed to prepare students for college and careers beyond high school.

The terms may be new; for example, PARCC replaces MCAS as a focal point in the education debate, but the core debate over who sets standards for the state's school children is heating up again.

"It is a sound violation of local control and the federal government has no right to be meddling with education," said William Gillmeister, of the Tantasqua School Committee, which governs a school district for grades 7-12 in five towns in Hampden and Worcester counties.

The committee has adopted resolutions urging state lawmakers to oppose Common Core educational standards that have been adopted by 45 states including the District of Columbia since 2010.

"I don't understand why it is Massachusetts has to spend likely billions of dollars in Federal-establishing standards when the state has arguably the best curriculum educational standards in the nation," Gillmeister said.

States were encouraged to adopt these standards through the promise of federal grants from Race to the Top, a program created by the Obama administration to encourage changes in education.

Gillmeister said the Tantasqua School Committee has not yet received any federal grants from Race to the Top.

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He plans to offer a resolution that will require the state to provide funds since his schools have adopted Common Core.

The state is also moving forward with its 2-year pilot program of the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers, the K-12 online assessment that would replace the math and English sections of MCAS.

Massachusetts is one of 19 states including the District of Columbia that is part of a nation-wide PARCC consortium.

Mitchell Chester, state education commissioner and chair of the national PARCC Governing Board, said the state will decide in three years whether to fully implement the test. He said 80 to 90 percent of schools are in the process of transitioning to Common Core standards.

Chester said more than 1,000 schools will participate in the field test next spring. The following spring, he said about half of the state's school districts will administer PARCC.

"Phasing the test in this way gives districts a chance to get to know the new assessment and get feedback," he said. "We want to be confident when we do make the decision that there is an improvement over our current MCAS condition."

Chester said MCAS is not an accurate indicator about whether students are being prepared for college or pursuing a career after graduation. He said PARCC will provide more timely information about students' success and their readiness to move on.

"The main benefits are that PARCC requires students to apply knowledge at each grade level," Chester said.

But Jamie Gass, director of the Center for School Reform at the nonprofit conservative think tank Pioneer Institute, cautioned that PARCC focuses less on classic literature, drama, and poetry, which he said strengthens the vocabulary of students.

He believes the switch to Common Core is one of the reasons for the decline of fourth-grade reading scores, which he said is a good predictor of future academic success.

"We've known for several years that the reading scores are stagnating or declining, especially with low-income students, and [PARCC] is an unnecessary transition that is not going to help things out and create greater confusion and less continuity," Gass said.

Doug McRae, a retired educational measurement specialist from California who designed large-scale testing programs for K-12, said it is difficult to measure a student's readiness for either higher education or the broad spectrum of careers available now and in the future.

"How you measure career readiness out of high school is very hard to do," McRae said. "There is a differentiation of skills needed in education for a wide range of careers that they can get into."

Some local school officials are giving the new curriculum high marks. Paula Giaquinto, assistant superintendent of curriculum and grants.in Fitchburg, said the implementation of Common Core into the district's curriculum has been positive for both students and teachers.

Giaquinto does not view the curriculum watered down as its critics claim it be, or as rigorous as some of its most ardent supporters praise it for being. But she said Common Core has helped students better understand what is expected of them academically while allowing teachers to develop lesson plans aimed at addressing students' weaknesses.

"Our students talk about performance and achievement today even at the elementary level," said Giaquinto. "They might say, 'I need to get better at a certain area in math. The common core helps ID that and makes it clear for everyone. No one has to read a teachers' mind about what the goal or the outcome is. It's great because then you can engage kids on what it is they need to improve"

'A thinking curriculum'

This year Fitchburg Public Schools celebrated the release of the 2013 MCAS scores, and with good reason. Crocker Elementary School moved up from a Level 2 to a Level 1 school, the first in the district, and Longsjo Middle School and McKay Arts Academy move up from Level 3 to Level 2.

Craig S. Chalifoux, principal of the Longsjo Middle School, believes the schools' improvements were partly due to their implementation of Common Core and its emphasis on critical thinking.

"It's a thinking curriculum," said Chalifoux. "It gets our children to look beyond the basics and get into the meat and potatoes of whether it's a novel or a math concept."

The new curriculum is founded on linking various subjects together. For example, Chalifoux said a fifth grade class reading the "The Birchbark House," a novel about Native Americans, are also doing research about the history and culture of tribes in North America.

Strategies for Children, a non-profit organization that promotes early education, sees the shift to PARCC and Common Core as beneficial to young students.

Amy O'Leary, the group's campaign director, said the new test and curriculum focus on career and college readiness at a younger age. She said educators and parents cannot wait until kindergarten to start teaching children.

"One thing we do see in Common Core literacy lens is that it highlights the importance of world language, which is a key predictor of how they will do in reading proficiency," said Kelly Kulsrud, the group's director of reading proficiency

Since PARCC will test students from different demographics and socio-economic backgrounds, O'Leary said educators will need to work together to make sure resources, such as computers, will be available to schools and students where it is most needed.

"It is not a one size fits all solution," O'Leary said. "Our job is to keep the conversation going and recognize momentum when it is happening across the country."

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